Smoke detectors are an integral part of the overall safety features of home, commercial establishments and industrial facilities. As is well-known, smoke detectors sense smoke in the air as an indicator of fire. Most smoke detectors sense smoke optically when smoke interferes with the transmission of light from a source to a detector or ionization, rather a change in ionization, recognition. Regardless of the operating mechanism of smoke detectors, they must, and in the case of commercial and industrial use, are generally required by codified fire prevention regulations to be tested at intervals that may range from monthly to yearly to determine if they are still operating at an acceptable level of detection.
With regard to home installations, smoke detectors are most often installed in walls, preferable on the ceilings of each room of a domicile where they are generally visible and readily available for testing.
Commercial and industrial settings can present a quite different scenario. Commercial establishments often include overhead duct work through which heating and air conditioning of the building is carried out. This ductwork may comprise a mechanism to shut down hot or cold air flow in the event of a fire to help prevent spread of the fire and more importantly the smoke, which is often a more serious concern than the fire itself insofar as human life is concerned. To assist in the recognition of a hazardous situation, the ductwork often contains smoke detectors that may be located on any surface of the ductwork at any location. Access to the interior of the ductwork is, however, usually limited to hatches located at intervals along the ductwork. If a smoke detector is not positioned near enough to a hatch, it can be very difficult to reach the detector to test it. Further, the intensity of the air flow through the ducts can seriously hinder remote testing.
The situation is similar, in fact usually exacerbated, in industrial settings, in particular those settings in which a great deal of electrical energy is being used such as in so-called server farms. Server farms are simply a collection of computers used to perform tasks that far exceed the capabilities individual computers. Well-known examples are super computer arrays. These arrays use tremendous amounts of electrical energy and generate concomitantly enormous amounts of heat. To keep the cables supplying the power cool, the cables are often run under false floors in which huge quantities of cooling air is constantly circulated. Under such drastic conditions, fire is always a concern and the false floors are generally fitted with smoke detectors to warn of impending danger. As with the overhead ductwork, the false floors are fitted with hatches at various locations, which may or may not provide ready access to smoke detectors for testing purposes.
Current procedures for testing smoke detectors involves mostly simply reaching out to the smoke detector simply by hand or by means of a long stick that has the detecting unit attached one end of it. These devices cannot reach, and are not adaptable to do so, smoke detectors locate in remote, often tight in terms of space, locations.
What is needed, then, is a device for quickly and accurately testing smoke detectors located in remote or tight or both remote and tight locations that simply cannot readily, if at all, be reached by current implements and procedures. The instant invention is directed to such a device.